May 16

• May 16, 1648
  Khmelnytsky's Cossacks beat John II Casimir Vasa at the Battle of Zhovti Vody during Khmelnytsky Uprising
• May 16, 1795
  The French-backed Batavian Republic in present-day Netherlands is established by treaty of The Hague and cedes to France the territories of Maastricht, Venlo, and Flanders
• May 16, 1811
  Both Allies and French suffer heavily at Battle of Albuera, which ends with indecisive result
• May 16, 1833
  Antonio López de Santa Anna, a Mexican politician and general, becomes President of Mexico for the first of eleven non-consecutive occasions
• May 16, 1862
  Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian engineer, builds first automobile, with a hydrogen gas fuelled one cylinder internal combustion engine
• May 16, 1881
  World's first electric tram, invented and made of two-decker horse tramway by Ukrainian-born Russian engineer Fyodor Pirotsky, goes into service in Saint Petersburg, Russia
• May 16, 1884
  Italian inventor Angelo Moriondo is granted the patent of the first espresso coffee machine
• May 16, 1920
  Spanish bullfighter Joselito, the most famous bullfighters, is fatally gored fighting his last bull
• May 16, 1929
  The first Academy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
• May 16, 1940
  German troops enter The Hague and Amsterdam, Netherlands
• May 16, 1960
  Theodore Maiman, an American engineer, operates the first optical laser, a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification, in Malibu, California, United States
• May 16, 1985
  Group of British scientists, Jonathan Shanklin, Joe Farman and Brian G. Gardiner, publish a paper in journal Nature dedicated to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, the first report about ozone depletion
• May 16, 1989
  Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping end a 30-year rift when they formally meet in Beijing
• May 16, 2011
  The European Union agree to a 78-billion euro rescue deal for Portugal, which will be equally split between the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, and the International Monetary Fund